Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood’s dream of building an “alliance of progressives” against UK Government cuts looks over before it even got started today as the leader of one of Wales’ biggest unions launched a vitriolic attack on her.

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood’s dream of building an “alliance of progressives” against UK Government cuts looks over before it even got started today as the leader of one of Wales’ biggest unions launched a vitriolic attack on her.

Ms Wood revealed earlier this week her plan to build a broad coalition of left-leaning parties and groups opposed to Conservative-Liberal Democrat austerity policies and said she had already held a meeting with the PCS union.

Both Plaid and the PCS said they had talked tentatively about organising a conference to discuss how best to create a united front.

But that now seems distant after Andy Richards, secretary of Unite Wales, slammed Plaid’s trade union overtures as “an opportunistic publicity stunt”. And Labour went even further, claiming that Ms Wood’s move constituted an “inaccurate and vindictive attack” on the union movement.

Mr Richards said that the timing of Ms Wood’s announcement was "as cynical as it is shameless".

He said: “This is nothing but an opportunistic publicity stunt ahead of next week’s Wales TUC Conference in Llandudno and on the back of a second electoral rejection in a row of Plaid Cymru by the Welsh people in the local elections.

“Unite Wales is already committed to working with our fellow trade unionists and other community organisations in Wales to fight the UK government’s austerity agenda and further action against the cuts is high on the agenda at next week’s conference.

“But we want to go one step further for the people of Wales and next week will open our discussion on ‘Making Devolution Work’ – a positive progressive policy debate on how we work within a devolved Wales to win for workers and the Welsh economy as whole.”

Past experience meant that unions would “not be fooled by Plaid Cymru’s attempts to portray themselves as trade union friendly nor are they the party of Welsh working people”, he went on.

“There is only one party for the working people of Wales, the party that the trade unions founded to give a voice to working people – the Labour Party. This is why it is called the Labour Party,” he said.

His attack met with a surprised response from Plaid, one of whose AMs publicly accused Mr Richards of putting his party loyalty before members’ interests.

Rhodri Glyn Thomas, the former Heritage Minister, described it as an “astonishing outburst” and said Mr Richards seemed “unable to accept that Plaid Cymru has shown long term determination to stand up for the rights of working people”.

He said: “His tribal comments show clearly that his priority is what’s best for the Labour party – rather than what’s best for his members.

“Over the past months, I and many Plaid Cymru colleagues have stood shoulder to shoulder with members of trades unions, including Unite, who have been fighting for a fair deal on pensions, and to save jobs that the UK Government wants to axe.

“The Labour party on the other hand has refused to support those efforts. Labour’s Ed Miliband has even said he will not reverse the cuts being made if he gets a chance.

“If Mr Richards spends his time fighting for what’s best for the Labour Party rather than what’s best for Unite members, maybe he should consider whether he’s in the right job.”

Mr Thomas called on Labour to disassociate themselves from Mr Richards’ comments.

“I invite Carwyn Jones to make a swift and clear statement opposing these tribal and sectarian remarks,” he said.

But Labour, who were jubilant about the Unite leader’s intervention, actually went further in a vicious attack on their one-time coalition partners.

A party spokesman said: “Hearing Leanne Wood and Plaid Cymru banging on about tribalism once again is as pathetic as it is predictable – coming as it does from a party whose guiding principle is the indisputably tribalist politics of separation.

“Welsh Labour remains proud as ever of its long and deep-rooted bond with

its affiliated Trade Unions, and we were disgusted by Leanne Wood’s inaccurate and vindictive attack on the good work they do.

“But people in Wales will see her claims for what they are – the grubby politics of a leader who has already lost her way, and the support of much of her party.

“There are many reasons why trade unions remain deeply suspicious of Plaid Cymru. Plaid’s threat of separation, threat to the UK economy, threatening to tear up pay bargaining arrangements, telling lies about the Welsh Union Learning Fund, and calling development grants for working people ‘bribery’ are just some of them.”

Ms Wood told a press conference on Tuesday that she had held a meeting with officials from trade union PCS on Monday and they had floated plans for a conference to flesh out ways they could work more closely together to take on the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

Asked if she thought her “alliance of progressives” could include Labour, she said: “I’ve previously called for progressives to come together to try to provide this alternative to the cuts, so, yes, that would include Welsh Labour but it would mean that tribalism and parochialism would need to be left behind and that’s a big challenge, I think, particularly at local and grassroots levels.

“But I think that it can be done with determination, and certainly there are people I know within the trade union movement who are members of the Labour Party who would be quite keen to join and work with others, especially at grassroots levels, to try and work out alternatives to austerity.”

She said there had already been some discussion of potential moves that could be made towards collaborating between Plaid Cymru, PCS and other trades unions.

Darren Williams, PCS’ campaigns officer for Wales, confirmed that a meeting had taken place and stressed the union was prepared to work alongside anybody they believed shared their objectives.

He said: “Leanne’s previously had meetings with other PCS officials, so we’ve had an ongoing relationship with Leanne before she was leader of Plaid Cymru, she was chair of our cross-party Assembly group from the time it was set up in 2005, so she’s always had a very positive relationship with PCS and indeed with other unions, and we’re happy to carry on working with her and with Plaid.

“But our position as a union is we’re not affiliated with any political party and we work with politicians of all parties who support our members’ interests and in the past we’ve worked with Leanne and we’ve worked with politicians of the Labour Party and some other parties as well.”

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